Sri Lanka

2013

New York, March 5, 2013--The Sri Lankan Defense Ministry says
it wants to identify sources who provided information to the UK-based
broadcaster Channel 4 for a new documentary alleging that government forces
committed war crimes during the country's long civil conflict, The Divaina, aSinhala-language daily, reported today. In response, the producer issued
a statement saying that no "resident anywhere in Sri Lanka helped us with this
film."

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On February 13, Navi Pillay, the U.N. high commissioner
for human rights, said in her annual
report to the U.N. Human Rights
Council (UNHRC) that Sri Lanka's government has not taken enough steps recommended
by its own Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC). Although the
LLRC is seen as a flawed attempt to heal Sri Lanka after decades of fratricidal
conflict, last year the Human Rights Council adopted a U.S. motion calling on
the government to act on the LLRC's recommendations. President Mahinda Rajapaksa's
government ignored the resolution, but the Americans say they will make a similar
motion at this year's meeting of the 22nd session of the UNHRC, which opens
on February 25 in Geneva.

Sri Lanka remained a highly restrictive and dangerous nation for the press. Critical or opposition journalists continued to face a climate of intense intimidation. More than 20 journalists have gone into exile in the last five years, one of the highest rates in the world. Work-related murders have declined since 2009, but the slayings of nine journalists have gone unsolved over the last decade, one of the worst records of impunity in the world. The government moved aggressively to obstruct the flow of information. In July, the Ministry of Media and Information blocked efforts to introduce freedom of information legislation before parliament, saying national security would be threatened if citizens were given access to public documents. The government had barred previous right-to-information efforts, including one in 2011. In June, police raided the offices of two opposition news websites, arresting staff members and confiscating equipment. At least five other critical websites were blocked. And in March, the authorities told all news organizations they must obtain prior official approval before issuing any text or SMS news alerts that carried information about the military or police.

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Black January commemorations in Colombo have become an annual
event. Tuesday's demonstration was the second. The protest aims to recall
the series of killings and attacks on journalists in Sri Lanka in recent years,
many of them occurring in Januaries past. All of them have gone untried and
unpunished, sustaining the country's perfect record
of impunity for those who want to silence media by murder.

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Three years ago, on January 24, 2010, columnist and cartoonistPrageeth Eknelygoda vanished
on his way to work to cover the final campaigning in Sri Lanka's bitterly
contested presidential election. He has not been heard from since. The pro-opposition
website he worked for, Lanka eNews, has been repeatedly
attacked,
its offices hit with arson, its staff arrested
and harassed,
its editor driven into exile in England.